Saturday's Ayr Gold Cup (3.45pm) sees six furlongs, soft ground and just the 25 runners stand in the way of paying for Saturday night’s take-away.

Trainer Richard Fahey landed a 5,984/1 four-timer at the Scottish track last year where 6/1f Don’t Touch won the feature and he saddles the ante-post fav Growl again this year. The bookies are taking no chances but there may be more value to be found with another trainer who targets the Scottish feature.

Kevin Ryan throws three darts at the board in Brando, Flaming Spear and Teruntum Star and it’s the latter that catches the eye under Derby winning rider and Irish champion jockey, Pat Smullen.

Things didn’t go to plan in the consolation race last year but the combination of a lighter campaign, his favoured soft ground and a decent draw in box 16 can make all the difference this time. Already a winner this season at Newmarket, the lightly-raced four-year-old has always been bigged up by his trainer.

At three times the favourite’s price, Teruntum Star can go very close to delivering on that promise this Saturday.

Atzeni’s mount can handle soft ground Unabated

We’re getting to the fag-end of the Flat season now and the weekend’s action will be dominated by big-field handicaps as handlers try to squeeze one last win from their runners before they’re free to spend the winter months in Barbados laughing at the jumps trainers.

The Group 2 Mill Reef Stakes at Newbury (2.15pm) has a small but select field but Thursday’s downpours means the ground will be softer than Celtic’s defence in mid-week.

The ante-post favourite has already cried off and a lot of these two-year-olds won’t have raced on ground this sticky before and their ability to get through it will have to be taken on trust.

But Marco Botti’s Unabated won over 6f in similar conditions at Newmarket on his debut and could be a bit of value to at least hit the places despite having a fair bit to find on the ratings with likely favourite Legendary Lunch.

His racing style sees him try to pull harder than a Premier League footballer on a Saturday night but if top jock Andrea Atzeni can get him to settle early, he can finish strongly when the others start to tread water.